There’s a role there which seems to be about project managing third parties and helping them to provide better products, which sounds good. 

1 minute ago, Superdelphinus said:

“content-based events” sound fun...

It really does. If I didn't live 3500 miles away I'd stick my CV in for the engineering role, my dream job!

10 minutes ago, nickhod said:

It really does. If I didn't live 3500 miles away I'd stick my CV in for the engineering role, my dream job!

If it really was your dream job you'd move hehehehe

We must remember that MS is a public company whose ONLY motive is to make money for it's shareholders.

I'm not surprised that they are setting up a store and I suspect ALL content must be purchased through the store, with MS taking probably a 30% cut.

Edited August 22, 20196 yr by MatthewS
changed "who's" to "whose"

As an end-user, I'm not averse to having a curated storefront with QA controls on official Third Party content. I doubt the same control will be exerted upon "user generated content". I grew up on FS4 and I've watched the market change, so I don't understand why there's so much angst about the platform developer getting a cut of the profit and/or enforcing quality standards.

As long as the tools and support to generate high-quality content are provided, then the future is brighter than ever. It appears we're getting a phenomenal platform upon which to build and improve. Contrast that with Eagle Dynamics, which zealously "protects" its SDK to the point only a handful of third party developers even attempt to create content. The ED developers do a horrific job of supporting the ecosystem, and despite strict controls, the quality of third party content is wildly inconsistent.

I'm one of those "PMDG people", but if I'm being perfectly honest, I don't care if PMDG agrees with the new marketplace arrangement or not. I hope they do, because i was a beta tester for them, I know RSR, and I like their stuff...but I'm staunchly against the outsize influence certain third party developers wield.

Edited August 22, 20196 yr by Noodle

10 minutes ago, Noodle said:

I doubt the same control will be exerted upon "user generated content"

This is up to MS... They can easily make FS2020 shut out content that is not purchased via the MS store.

Edited August 22, 20196 yr by MatthewS

1 minute ago, MatthewS said:

This is up to MS... They can easily make FS2020 shut out content that is not purchased via the MS store.

I said what I said.

Microsoft seems to differentiate between "third party content" and "user generated content". Make of that what you will.

11 minutes ago, MatthewS said:

We must remember that MS is a public company who's ONLY motive is to make money for it's shareholders.

I'm not surprised that they are setting up a store and I suspect ALL content must be purchased through the store, with MS taking probably a 30% cut.

Exactly, and I actually think it's great news for new developers. It will level the playing field somewhat and their products will be easily discoverable by hundreds of thousands of MSFS users.

Just now, nickhod said:

Exactly, and I actually think it's great news for new developers. It will level the playing field somewhat and their products will be easily discoverable by hundreds of thousands of MSFS users.

Though I think it will also discourage many developers who already walk a fine line between setting a fair price and recouping their costs. If MS take a 30% cut then those developers face a much harder decision on whether to bother developing for FS2020 or not.

3 minutes ago, MatthewS said:

Though I think it will also discourage many developers who already walk a fine line between setting a fair price and recouping their costs. If MS take a 30% cut then those developers face a much harder decision on whether to bother developing for FS2020 or not.

Yeah I'd hope for less than 30%. 20% seems easier to swallow. We'll see.

However, people who moan about that 30% have to factor in how much doing marketing and advertising can cost to get eyeballs on your product by other means.

Over the past 2 years, my kid has purchased (and/or thankfully been gifted) $300 worth of vbucks that have all been spent on a supposed “FREE” to play game...for skins and emotes that don’t impact the gameplay at all!!!

You may be surprised at the economies of scale that the Xbox store could bring to 3rd parties IF the base sim is compelling enough to attract the audience, especially a younger one already used to the DLC model. 

I heard they wanted 60% to 70% for MS Flight, so watch out.. Hopefully it will be just 30% this time.

S.

I may be off here but 70% to dev / 30% to MS split sounds like a smokin good deal if MS handles the downloads and bandwidth / receivables / marketplace / marketing / security etc. etc.

Developers handle support for their products, cashes the check and pays their taxes. Any marketing and anything else they do beyond that on them.

In my line of work if an employer offers you a 70/30 split of profit and you have a solid book of business that's a great deal when all you have to deal with is covering your business.

It is after all MS's product that allows developers to prosper. It is also the developers that give the sim longevity and marketability without a doubt.

Two way street, either one can't succeed without the other. In it's base default form FS9, FSX and P3D and XPlane to some extent would be dead and gone. 

Edited August 22, 20196 yr by skully

7 hours ago, skully said:

I may be off here but 70% to dev / 30% to MS split sounds like a smokin good deal if MS handles the downloads and bandwidth / receivables / marketplace / marketing / security etc. etc.

Question is, what you get for paying 30%, currently SimMarket takes a similar cut, but they handle all the VAT (Tax handling which is very cumbersome) across all the world, so you don't have to declare such taxes to each individual government on each country where the sale was originated.

Having said that I found others companies that handle such translations and offer also licensing protection for only 5% to 8% of commission, these are well known global companies which their business is only handling international payments.

So you could argue 30% is somewhat high 😉.

S.

17 hours ago, MatthewS said:

The fact that FS2020 supports XBox (and thus the XBox store) should be sounding alarm bells for the developer community. I think you can probably expect all addons (including those for the PC version) will have to be sold via the XBox store, with MS taking a cut of your profits.

Do you ever offer anything positive? Maybe the MS team will decide to disprove this theory of yours as well in next week’s news update.

Edited August 23, 20196 yr by ual763